New to the whole pribiotics thing but doing more research. A couple of questions for you. Is this something I should be taking and giving my 17 mo. old ds on a regular basis - adn if so -do you recommend a certain brand (I'd be buying it, not making it) and dosage to give to a babe/toddler? I've looked into some brands but it seems they are more recommended for a little older child.

I culture two different yogurts for everyone in my family from the two powders I buy.

The point of culturing is two fold. I believe they are far more powerful and ready for action when they have just been born and are in their metabolic products. Remember you're trying to get them to cohabit with the epithelial cells in the GI tract.

To get the volume of bacteria to really make a difference would cost a fortune. One or two caps a day ain't gonna do it.
Especially if you're still eating meats pumped full of antibiotics (gotta keep those sick cattle alive long enough to turn them into food!)

When my son started getting dairy at about a year he loved the yogurt so much he could eat 2 6 oz containers in a day.

Compare that volume to a couple of caps.

He went through his measles at 18 months with barely a rash-- it was very faint and stayed only on his chest and back, never made it to his face and limbs.

That's how strong his immune system is.

If you're not sure how that relates to the probiotics, keep reading the links I posted-- I promise that all the info is there.

He's finished his second round of antibiotics (another story!) and is now having digestive problems. He's had 1/4 t. of the babyjarrodophilous once a day, but I"m wondering if I can or should give him another dose or two throughout the day.

I myself take probiotics and will gladly sing the praises of the benefits of taking them...
but I think an even more important and effective way of obtaining health and balance from probiotics is through dietary therapies. Many traditional cultures around the world have long incorporated specific foods to their daily diet, foods that include beneficial bacteria, aka probiotics...
The Korean~ Kim Chee
Japanese~ miso, tempeh, oshinka, tofu, amazake
Chinese~ tofu
India ~ yogurt, tofu, and pickled vegetables
Europe~ yogurt, cultured butter and cheeses, pickled vegetables, sour kraut
Latin America~ cultured sour cream, pickled relishes
etc etc etc
We all could benefit greatly by incorporating these foods into our daily diets. I have seen great improvement in my digestive health and immunity once I began eating yogurt, tempeh, tofu, miso, sour kraut, and cultured sour cream on a regular basis.
There are also other foods that work greatly in conjunction to these foods by supporting healthy bacteria/flora levels~
-garlic
-onions
-shitake mushrooms
-apple cider vinegar
-ginger root
-apples
-cranberries
-blueberries
-lemons
-various chili peppers
-sea vegis

I have seen reference to the fact that they help keep pesticides and other toxic chemicals from being absorbed by the GI tract but I still have to find a specific study.

The issue of mercury in our food is not limited to issues with fish consumption. Soils all over the world and specifically in the US are being contaminated by the burning of coal in power plants.

North Carolina' rain has tested at TWICE the level for mercury that the EPA recommends and we sure know that they aren't exactly the toughest standards.

Even if we eat organic we still need to have healthy flora in order to keep the toxins out.

If you are growing food on your property, as a rotational crop plant sunflowers, they draw heavy metals from the soil into their stems. I don't know if the metals migrate to the seeds or not, but without specific studies to reference I would throw the whole crop out.

For any interested in more info do a web search for "phytoremediation"

What are the brand names, products you all get at Whole Foods? I found, for example, Kefir (organic lowfat), an acidopholus whole milk yogurt, and some other similar products. There's also a refrid. case in the natural remedies aisle, but I don't know which ones to buy.

I am not looking to culture own yogurt, just incorporate probiotics into dd and ds's diet in a relatively easy way (e.g., store bought yogurt if poss., adding probiotic powder to their milk.. or too good to be true????). FYI.. they currently eat mostly organic, whole foods - healthy diet by most standards. Just interested in natural boost to immune system, esp. during this flu season (and allergies run strongly in dh's family).

Is there a specific place to find information about the use of probiotics to treat/help a child who is receiving medication for lactose intolerance? I have a niece who has been on meds for over 3 years now and I just know theres more that can be done in her diet to get her off regular medication for an intolerance that was probably brought on by her diet to begin with. Thanks!

I have done some reading on probiotics (incl on this website). I bought Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions, for example, and found it to be very informative (and a terrific read). But I still have so many questions and am left feeling more confused than before. I think what I'm missing is a "primer" of how to get started. What to give and when, how much, etc... I am hoping you might be able to help me and others who seem to be in the same boat.

I am interested in incorporating more probiotics into their diet, as I am fairly convinced of its immune-boosting properties and protection against allergies -- it being cold/flu season, dd and ds having been born early, and allergies running rampant in dh's family.. I worry about being "high risk" for illness and allergy. Dd and ds are 20 months old, healthy... they eat mostly organic foods, and I try to buy/serve whole grains as much as possible. Hardly any sugar at all. So their diet is already very healthy from a mainstream perspective anyway. They ADORE yogurt, and a few months ago, I switched from YoBaby to organic whole milk PLAIN yogurt (with fresh fruit mixed in) and they love it. Hmmm... anything else pertinent. Ds weighs around 22 pounds. Dd weighs around 27 pounds. They do drink organic whole cow's milk - around 12 oz. a day. Both were sensitive to dairy in my diet when infants, but have grown out of it and seem to tolerate dairy well now.

Now a few specific questions I still have...

1.) Is it possible to benefit from incorporating "probiotics" without culturing your own food. With twins, I cannot imagine finding the time to do this. Or if you can only do store-bought (e.g., Jarrow Baby, Kefir, etc.), should you even bother.
2.) Which products? How much? How often? For exmaple, will 6 oz. of whole milk yogurt mixed with a little Baby Jarrow powder each day be enough?
3.) How will I know it's "working"?? For example, will poops change? If so, how? (Sorry - yuck!)

Any pearls of wisdom you all have in getting started would be SOOO helpful. Sorry to have rambled on, but as I said, I'm sort of at the stage where I have more questions than answers.

The article below ran in today’s Baltimore Sun about the issue of protection from probiotics. It was likely sparked by the press release we shared with you yesterday. It also discusses a number of studies similar to what we’ve discussed, so I thought you may find it interesting.

Copyright 2004 The Baltimore Sun Company
All Rights Reserved
The Baltimore Sun

January 5, 2004 Monday FINAL Edition

SECTION: TELEGRAPH, Pg. 10A

LENGTH: 1066 words

HEADLINE: Good bugs getting more notice;
Probiotics: Researchers say friendly bacteria can improve intestinal functioning and may be a source of treatment for a range of diseases.;
MEDICINE & SCIENCE

BYLINE: David Kohn

SOURCE: SUN STAFF

BODY:
As you read this, your intestinal tract is playing host to a multitude of guests -- several trillion bacteria, between 500 and 1,000 different strains.

But there's no need to rush off to the emergency room: This throng of tiny creatures, which together can weigh more than 4 pounds, exists in every human on the planet.

They perform a variety of useful tasks that our own bodies cannot. They keep harmful bacteria in check, help regulate the immune system and even make vitamin K, a key blood-clotting agent.

"We need bacteria. They do a lot for us," says gastroenterologist Jeffry Katz, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

Until recently, few researchers studied this complex internal ecosystem. But over the past five years, scientists have taken a closer look, and they're finding that some of these bugs may be able to prevent or treat a variety of ailments, including intestinal disorders, allergies and perhaps even some cancers.

"It's an extremely exciting area. We can exploit the bacteria within the intestine for beneficial purposes," said Dr. Fergus Shanahan, a leading researcher on "probiotics," as these bacterial treatments are known.

Gulping bacteria to improve health is hardly new. People have been eating yogurt -- milk fermented with bacteria -- for centuries. But recent research could lead to a range of specific probiotic treatments.

Some say probiotics can help offset the overly sanitized nature of modern society. This "hygiene hypothesis" argues that our rush to eliminate deadly microbes has also eliminated too many useful bacteria, inadvertently increasing the incidence of ailments they once held in check.

Much of the research has focused on intestinal illnesses, including Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Many probiotics researchers suspect that a disturbance to the intestinal ecosystem results in an excess of harmful, damaging bacteria.

Some scientists believe that adding "good" bacteria to the intestine can counter the harmful bugs. In a small study, University of Chicago gastroenterologist Stefano Guandalini gave daily doses of Lactobacillus GG, a particularly friendly strain, to children with Crohn's disease, an IBD that afflicts 500,000 Americans. Their symptoms improved markedly.

"The good bacteria seem to have a protective role," said Guandalini, who is now doing a larger follow-up study.

Other scientists are examining whether probiotics can treat allergies and other immune system ailments. Finnish researcher Erika Isolauri gave Lactobacillus GG to pregnant mothers and then to their newborn infants. Compared with a control group, these babies had half the rate of atopic dermatitis, a common skin rash.

Perhaps most intriguing, researchers are accumulating evidence that probiotics can help prevent colon cancer, which kills around 50,000 Americans a year. Irish researcher Ian Rowland has found that several microbes prevent precancerous cells from forming in mice.

No one knows how beneficial strains like Lactobacillus GG actually work. They may produce natural antibiotics that kill destructive bacteria, strengthen the intestinal lining or occupy key intestinal receptor sites, crowding out other microbes.

"The intestinal milieu is remarkably complex and difficult to study," said Katz, who suspects that most gut bacteria have not even been discovered yet.

Advances in genetics are making the job easier. In the past, many of these bacteria couldn't survive outside the intestine, and so couldn't be cultured in the lab. But researchers can now use DNA from dead organisms to identify new species.

Some researchers have moved beyond identifying helpful bacteria, and are trying to genetically engineer these microbes to make drugs or perform other useful tasks.

Bacteria are relatively simple creatures, so adjusting their genetic makeup presents fewer difficulties. And because bacteria are already adapted to the human body, they are unlikely to be destroyed before completing their assigned task.

This approach has already shown promise. Stanford researchers have engineered a lactobacillus to latch onto and kill the HIV virus. The bacteria live naturally in the human vaginal tract; if the modifications turn out to be safe for humans, the modified version could be the basis of an affordable HIV vaccine.

Even without definitive evidence that probiotics work, some doctors have begun recommending bacterial remedies. For the past five years, Dr. James George, a gastroenterologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, has advised many patients to take probiotics for irritable bowel syndrome, a chronic condition that causes abdominal pain and diarrhea. Bacteria help a "substantial portion" of those who take them, he says.

Although proponents like George are an exception in the United States, probiotics are well-known and commonly used in Europe and Japan. In fact, they are a billion-dollar industry, available in mainstream stores and supermarkets.

In the United States, by contrast, such products are generally available only in health food stores or via the Internet.

"The concept that microbes could be good for you is foreign to people in this country," said microbiologist Mary Ellen Sanders, president of the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics. The nonprofit group was formed in 2002 to bring scientific rigor to a field that even bacterial believers admit sometimes veers into snake oil territory.

Because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration classifies probiotics as foods and supplements rather than drugs, the industry receives little oversight. Some manufacturers take advantage of this: One company, for example, sells a "probiotic" after-shave. Katz recently analyzed 17 probiotic products and found that more than half contained far less bacteria than advertised.

"There are a lot of outrageous claims that have not been subjected to testing," added Shanahan, who is director of the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre at the University of Cork in Ireland. He worries that shoddy or overhyped products could taint the entire field.

Shanahan, who began studying probiotics 20 years ago, came to the field as a skeptic, expecting to find that probiotics had little or no benefit. Instead, he has been convinced of the opposite. "There are too many observations here that are real," he said. "We need to explore this."

GRAPHIC: Photo(s), Some bacteria, such as this Bifidobacterium longum R0175 (shown under an electron microscope), may be able to treat or prevent a range of ailments, including allergies and some cancers.; ALEXANDRA SMITH : UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH

This approach has already shown promise. Stanford researchers have engineered a lactobacillus to latch onto and kill the HIV virus. The bacteria live naturally in the human vaginal tract; if the modifications turn out to be safe for humans, the modified version could be the basis of an affordable HIV vaccine.

I've been giving dd and ds Baby JarroDophilus (1/4 tsp) once a day for 4 days now. We've "upped" the amount of yogurt (Stonyfield Farms whole milk plain) they eat daily to ~6 oz. (up from 3-4 oz.), and added Kefir (~2-3 oz. every other day). Is this a good amount, variety? They are tolerating well, no ill effects at all - should I increase or leave as is?

Quick question re: poop (sorry, gross)... oddly, their poops have firmed up a bit. (They both had a mild tummy bug a week or so ago for a few days, and were having frequent (3-5/day), loose-ish green-ish stools. Sorry, gross I know.) Now they're firmer, still soft, maybe 2-3/day... but certainly not the "frothy" I've read Goodpapa describe. Is this normal? I would have thought they'd be practically runny at first.

Slightly OT... I have a general question about cultured milk. If someone has a milk sensitivity or allergy, can you still give them cultuered milk products (cheese, yogurt, buttermilk, cottage cheese..)? I've read you can, but why? I have some slight concerns that ds may be sensitive to too much milk, but am not sure about whether to include cultured milk products in the amounts.

Why runny poops? The good flora are knocking out the bad but they breed so prolificly that they constitute a healthy portion of the final product.

Four days seems like a remarkably short time to be seeing the benefits.

Maybe it's time to toss the store-bought and start culturing?

Honestly, the beauty of poops is that if the majority of parents were paying attention to their appearance they'd know early on of the health problems in their children that later manifest themselves.

Diarrhea is NOT a normal state of things for anyone, let alone a child. In fact, there is a strong link between GI problems (first) and autism (later) in vaxed children.

No more PharmaDestruction!

Ray

PS. The "why" of cultured milk is that the bacteria actually digest the proteins (primarily casein) that cause allergic reactions in children who have leaky guts. When undigested casein slips through the unprotected, flora absent, GI epithelial walls there is an IgE response from the immune system reacting to the foreign substance in the bloodstream.

Hi r+smom2. I am fairly new to probiotics myself. However, I asked a lot of questions on this thread and a couple of other probiotics threads in this forum too, most of which answered. I also read a lot - many great links provided here by Goodpapa and Amnesiac. Also, I highly recommend getting Sally Fallon's book Nourishing Traditions. Goodpapa recommended it, and I found it to be tremendously informative on all manner of health topics, but especially the cultured foods part.

For your 4.5 year old, you should not use Baby Jarrow. Use the regular adult powder, "Jarro-Dophilus+FOS". You can buy it online at several places, and Whole Foods may sell it. I do not think there is any reason not to [I}ultimately[/I] be giving him an adult dose (which is 1/4 tsp.). However, since he's new to it, I'd ease into it. Over the course of a week or two, start with 1/8 tsp. 1x/day, then if well tolerated (e.g., no diarrhea), work up to 1/8 tsp. 2x/day (once in the morning, and once in the evening - so this is the full amount, but split into 2 doses). As long as he is tolerating that well, you can give him just the regular dose (i.e., 1/4 tsp 1x/day). I have been using yogurt to give it to dd and ds - I just mix in the dose of powder to a SMALL amount of yogurt (small, so you know they'll take it all), mix it around, and in a spoon or two, it's all gone.

As for store-bought yogurt, I have not yet started culturing either. I use 2 kinds of store-bought cultured milk products:

* Stonyfield Farms whole milk PLAIN yogurt. I mix mashed bananas or applesauce into it, and dd and ds LOVE it.
* Organic Kefir (sold at Whole Foods). I use plain, and mix it with some juice. I figure a little juice is probably better than a lot of plain sucrose (table sugar). I guess I use about 2 oz. Kefir to 1 oz. grape juice, and dd and ds drink it down like a smoothie. You could also use mashed banana, which would be delicious.

I would advise against using anything with table sugar in it on a regular basis for children. I think it's just plain bad for you for a variety of reasons and encourages the growth of BAD "flora" such as yeast. That includes things like Stonyfield Farms Yo-Baby yogurt, Dannon Actimel, flavored Kefir, store-bought yogurt smoothies, and so on. It is very possible to make plain yogurt products very yummy with a little fruit.